


Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): Loki and Aelfhun

by literally_no_idea



Series: Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH) Main Series [21]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, SDfSH 'verse, Service Animals, Service Dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 15:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18195776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literally_no_idea/pseuds/literally_no_idea
Summary: Weekly movie night in the tower is interrupted by Thor storming out of the elevator, dragging Loki along by a death grip on his arm. Everyone jumps to their feet; Natasha has already drawn the knife she keeps in her boot just in case, and Clint scrambles back until he’s standing behind her, Lucky immediately blocking in front of him.“Tony, I need you to keep Loki safe for me,” Thor says, and Natasha finally has a chance to take in the gods’ appearance: they’re both covered in dirt, sweat, and blood, and Loki looks shaky on his feet.





	Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): Loki and Aelfhun

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to the series, or if you're new here, welcome! This part of the series is about Loki and Aelfhun. Enjoy!

Weekly movie night in the tower is interrupted by Thor storming out of the elevator, dragging Loki along by a death grip on his arm. Everyone jumps to their feet; Natasha has already drawn the knife she keeps in her boot just in case, and Clint scrambles back until he’s standing behind her, Lucky immediately blocking in front of him.

 

“Tony, I need you to keep Loki safe for me,” Thor says, and Natasha finally has a chance to take in the gods’ appearance: they’re both covered in dirt, sweat, and blood, and Loki looks shaky on his feet.

 

“I don’t think I like that,” Tony says, “you do remember what he did last time he was here, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, obviously. But this is a matter of life and death. Please. I’ll be back for him soon. Just a few weeks, at most.”

 

Tony hesitates, but finally nods. “Okay. Fine. But only for a few weeks.”

 

Thor nods. “Thank you.” He lets go of Loki, walking back to the elevator, and Loki stumbles, barely catching himself and managing to stay standing. Loki takes a look around the room and holds his hands up in surrender.

 

“I know you don’t want me around. I understand. I’ll leave, I just need a moment. Thor shouldn’t have brought me here.”

 

Tony shakes his head. “No, I’d rather have you where I can keep track of you. I have an empty floor that I’ve been holding onto in case Thor or someone else wanted to move in. You can stay there. JARVIS will take you down in the elevator. If you need anything from here, you have to wait until we’re not here, or until everyone currently on the floor has agreed to let you come up. JARVIS, make note of that.”

 

“Noted,” Jarvis answers from the ceiling, and Tony nods.

 

“Alright, go.”

 

Loki leaves, and it’s not until the elevator doors click shut that everyone starts yelling.

 

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Clint demands.

 

“You can’t be serious about keeping him in the tower,” Steve says.

 

“This is fucking insane, I’m going to fucking kill him if he stays,” Bruce adds.

 

“Why did Thor think it was okay to bring him here?” Natasha asks.

 

Tony shouts over all of them. “Damn it, I don’t know, but you don’t  _ really _ want him wandering all over Earth without any supervision, do you?” That causes an uncomfortable silence. Tony sighs. “I don’t like this either. But what choice do we have?”

 

* * *

 

For the first week, whenever JARVIS asks if Loki can come to the communal floor, everyone either says no or just leaves the communal floor entirely. They all have their own reasons for avoiding the god; Clint still has nightmares about being under Loki’s control, Bruce hates Loki for trying to manipulate him into dissociating, Tony can’t quite shake the image of the void of space whenever he sees Loki’s face, Steve gets pissed every time he remembers Loki forcing those people in Germany to kneel, and Bucky has heard the team talk about Loki before, and he’s already had enough brainwashing for a lifetime, thanks.

 

But it can’t last forever; with how often someone’s on the communal floor, Loki hasn’t been allowed up in over a week, and JARVIS explains this to Natasha while she’s sitting up drinking tea one night after a particularly vivid nightmare.

 

“Ms. Romanoff, I hate to intrude, but Loki has requested access to the communal floor, and I’m inclined to oblige, as there is no food on his floor and he hasn’t eaten in five days.” That’s something Natasha hadn’t thought about, and she’s a little surprised that Tony hasn’t had food delivered to Loki’s floor, though with everyone trying to just ignore his existence in the tower, maybe it makes sense. Jarvis repeats the question, and Natasha pushes those thoughts aside.

 

“Sure, Jarvis, let him up.” She has no intention of leaving; she came here because being on her own floor with the memories from her nightmare was starting to feel claustrophobic, and Loki’s not going to be the one to force her back there. The elevator dings, and Loki steps out, freezing when he sees Natasha.

 

“I can leave,” he says, and Natasha shakes her head.

 

“No, it’s fine. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want you here. I’ve been forced to go without food before. It’s not something I would do to someone intentionally, no matter how I feel about them as a person.”

 

Loki comes into the kitchen, but he’s still moving around like a frightened animal, and Natasha honestly can’t even blame him; it’s not like she or anyone else has been particularly welcoming to him since he got here. Once he’s closer, though, Natasha can see how red his eyes are and the dark shadows under them, and she frowns. “Not sleeping well?” She asks.

 

“Not particularly. But it’s not unusual for me, so it doesn't matter.” He opens the pizza box on the counter, leftovers from the team’s dinner, and stands there to eat the remaining half of the extra large pizza, shoving the food into his mouth as fast as possible, as if it’ll be taken away from him any minute now.

 

“Insomnia, or nightmares?”

 

Loki finishes the pizza, wiping his hands off on his pants. “Why all the questions? I can’t imagine you’re genuinely concerned about my wellbeing.”

 

“And maybe I am. Maybe I feel that I’ve misjudged you in the past, and I want to fix that.” Natasha stands up to make a second cup of tea, because damn if she doesn’t love the box of fancy teas Tony had gotten for her last Christmas.

 

Loki watches her move around the kitchen, stepping out of the way. “You wouldn’t enjoy what you hear.”

 

“Try me.”

 

* * *

 

Loki turns out to be right, but not in the way he had originally thought; Natasha listens to him explain his side of things, and it’s official, she hates Odin, even if she’s never met the guy. She also doesn’t like the way this Thanos guy sounds, and she seriously hopes that Loki’s right about Thor being able to stop him. And sure, she’s still not the biggest fan of Loki himself, but she can’t deny that with a life story like that, some terrible actions on Loki’s part isn’t entirely unreasonable.

 

She’s quiet for a few minutes after he’s finished speaking, and Loki appears to misinterpret the silence for anger towards him, standing up from where he’d settled into one of the stools by the kitchen. “Well. I’ve intruded long enough. I’ll be leaving now.”

 

“No, wait. Don’t go. Just… Why didn’t you just explain all of this to begin with?”

 

Loki gives Natasha a puzzled look. “Because it was clear that I’d already hurt all of you, in one way or another. I didn’t want to impose more than I already have.”

 

Natasha smiles. “You have met Tony, right? He’s got a pretty big personality, but he’s also got a good heart and good reasons for why he is the way he is. We do more than just tolerate him; we love him, flaws and all. But it was harder for us to do that when we didn’t know what was going on. And sure, maybe that’s unfair of us, but it’s still the truth. We’re more likely to care about people when we know the motivation behind their actions. And it sounds like you had pretty good motivations.”

 

Loki’s quiet for a moment, and then he nods. “I’ll have to keep that in mind. Thanks for letting me come up here.”

 

“No problem.” Loki starts to head back to the elevator. “Oh, and Loki?” The god turns. “If you’re hungry, I’m pretty sure JARVIS can get food sent to your floor. There’s also food here, and you can have anything you want. My floor has food, too. Just ask JARVIS, and I’ll have him let you onto my personal floor.” Loki nods silently, and then he turns, goes into the elevator, and is gone again.

 

Natasha sighs, draining the rest of her tea and putting the mug in the sink. She heads to the elevator and back to bed, and she hopes Loki knows that she meant everything she said.

 

* * *

 

She gets confirmation that Loki understood her when JARVIS gets her attention in the shooting range three days later. “Pardon me, Ms. Romanoff, but Loki is requesting access to your personal floor.”

 

“Sure, he can go up there, and I’ll join him in a minute,” Natasha confirms, efficiently emptying and cleaning the guns she was working with. When she gets to her floor, Loki’s digging around in the freezer with his back to her, so she clears her throat from where she’s standing in the doorway so Loki will know she’s there without her risking getting stabbed. He whips around, hand twitching like he was about to draw a weapon, but he relaxes when he sees her.

 

“Sorry, I thought-- I haven’t gotten used to being around people again.”

 

Natasha shrugs, walking over to join him in front of the freezer. “It’s fine. I still keep a knife in each of my boots no matter where I go, just out of habit. You do what you have to do to feel safe. So, what are we in the mood for?”

 

“I’m not sure, I’m not even entirely sure how half this stuff is supposed to be eaten,” Loki says, looking back into the freezer.

 

Natasha thinks about it for a moment, then closes the freezer. “Hold on, I have a feeling I know something you might like.” She opens one of the cupboards and pulls out a box of spaghetti and a can of sauce, then starts rummaging around for a good pot and pan. “When I introduce you to Frank, don’t ever tell him I actually like the boxed stuff, he’d flip his shit.”

 

“Okay? What even is it?”

 

Natasha turns on one of the stove burners. “Pasta. Get over here, I’ll show you how to make it, and if you like it, you can take some of it down to your floor with you in case you want to make it yourself.” Loki joins her at the sink, and she shows him how to estimate the amount of water needed. “Okay, so, that’s the water we need. Now, we put it over here, let it heat up. I always add a little salt, personally, and then we wait for it to start boiling.”

 

Natasha leads him through how to cook everything, and when the food’s done, she sets up two plates of it, setting them down at her small square dining room table. “Alright, tell me how it tastes, and if you say ‘like shit,’ I’m going to blame it on you for helping me make it.”

 

Loki laughs, sitting down across from her. “You probably wouldn’t be wrong.” Natasha takes a bite of her own, that way Loki can see for sure that it’s safe, and he watches her, mimicking the way she’d used her fork to scoop some of it up, and trying it himself. He moans around the first bite, and Natasha grins.

 

“I’ll take that as a five star review?”

 

Loki swallows, grinning back. “I also haven’t really eaten in three days, and before that it had been about 2 weeks since I had an actually decent sized meal, so I wouldn’t get cocky so soon.”

 

“Hmm, we’ll see about that.”

 

* * *

 

Natasha can’t say she’s happy with what Loki’s done in the past, but she also can’t find it within herself to hold a grudge. If anyone would understand the importance of second, and third, and even fifteenth chances, it’s her. So she finds herself building a comfortable, steady relationship with Loki. He’s a smartass, as clueless as Thor had first been about human customs and culture, and he’s traumatized. He’s scared and alone in a place he had once done damage to, surrounded by people he’d hurt, and he doesn’t know what to do with any of that, so he keeps falling back on old coping mechanisms; being aggressive, deceitful, and standoffish. Yeah, Natasha can definitely relate to the guy.

 

So she’s not surprised when JARVIS says that Loki’s asking to talk to her, but she’s definitely surprised when he says that Loki had deemed it “urgent.” She meets Loki just outside the elevator on his floor, and he holds his hands out to stop her from going into the living room. “Okay, I just want you to know, I didn’t know it was there, so this is news to me too.”

 

“What?” Loki leads her into the living room, where an honest to god deer is standing in the middle of the room. “I… That’s not you, right? You’re not making that happen?”

 

“No, and it is apparently not from Earth, it’s just imitating one of your planet’s animals. I think it’s from the planet Thor and I came from when he left me here a few weeks ago. It must have taken the form of something small so it wouldn’t be noticed.”

 

Natasha stares at it, making sure not to look away in case it attacks. “So a shapeshifter? And it changed to this form now why, exactly?”

 

“I believe it was imitating the animal in the show I was watching.”

 

Natasha shoots a quick glance at the tv.  _ Bambi _ . Okay, sure, why not. “Can you communicate with it?”

 

Loki shakes his head. “Not necessarily. I can both send and receive basic ideas, but nothing specific.”

 

“Okay. It doesn’t seem aggressive, so that’s a good start. Will its body language change to match the species it’s imitating? Do you think we could get it to take the form of a dog? JARVIS?”

 

“Ms. Romanoff, based on my resources, it does appear to be emulating the behavior of the deer it has taken the shape of. Do you have a preference of what kind of dog you would like it to take the shape of?”

 

Natasha thinks about that for a second. “Maybe an Afghan Hound? Long hair, black with tan and white, female?”

 

“One moment, Ms. Romanoff, allow me to recreate a three dimensional hologram to place in the room.” There’s a pause, and then a holographic Afghan Hound appears in the center of the room beside the deer.

 

The deer approaches the hologram, and there’s a shimmer of light as the deer transforms into a copy of the dog. “Awesome, that’s something I can work with. Loki, can you try and ask it to keep that form? Just, stay that way for now?”

 

Loki nods. “I can try.” He stares at the dog for a moment, and then chuckles. “They agree, but they want to meet other dogs.”

 

Natasha shrugs. “Yeah, sure, why not? Let me go talk to the rest of the team.” She heads back to the elevator, going up to the communal floor. Tony, Steve, and Sam are there with their dogs, and they’re playing Mario Kart, trading insults. They’ll have to do. “Hey boys, are we willing to let the dogs do an introduction right now?”

 

“One second!” Tony doesn’t even look away from the screen, but Sam does, and when he turns back, his character’s kart has fallen over the side of the track.

 

“Man, that’s not fair! You can’t just banana peel a man when he’s distracted! How are you even this good at rainbow road, anyway?”

 

“I’m a civilian who flies around in a suit with an AI and thousands of stats flying across my visor at any given moment, what do you expect? …Also I was rich as a kid, so I got the beta versions of these before they ever even went to market.”

 

“I knew it!”

 

The game finishes, and all three men turn. “So, something about an introduction? Who’s the new dog?”

 

“No name yet,” Natasha says, “but they’re… different. I’m asking you to try to be calm if something weird happens, okay? And I need you to give Loki permission to be up here.”

 

Tony and Steve tense and share a look. “Okay? Sure, why not,” Steve says, and Natasha nods.

 

“JARVIS, can you tell Loki they can come up now?”

 

There’s a few moments of uncomfortable silence before the elevator dings and Loki steps out, the shapeshifter at his side. The shapeshifter trots up to the other dogs, and they sniff each other before stepping back. The shapeshifter looks at Loki. “They’re asking if they’re allowed to change form,” Loki tells the group.

 

Steve’s head snaps up. “Change form? What kind of weird drugs are you on?”

 

“Sure, let them,” Natasha says, “Might as well.” Loki must communicate this, because there’s suddenly two Ava’s in the room and the Afghan Hound is gone.

 

“Okay, what the hell!” Sam shouts, scrambling back until he’s balanced like a cat on the back of the couch. “You have got to be kidding me. There is no way this is real.”

 

Steve doesn’t move, but he looks confused, and Tony leaps to his feet, circling the two identical dogs. “That is fascinating! A shapeshifter? Where’d you get it from? How does it do that? I feel weird not having a name for them, do they have a name?”

 

Loki looks like he can’t figure out which question he’s supposed to answer, and Natasha just elbows him. “You get used to it. Just answer one question at a time, he’ll know what you mean. It’s a weird skill of his.”

 

“Yes, a shapeshifter. I believe it followed me here from the planet Thor and I were on before. I don’t know how it does that, but presumably it does so using the power of Yggdrasil, that’s where most mystic beings draw their power from, including myself. And they do not have a name. Perhaps Aelfhun would work?”

 

Tony continues to circle the dogs, taking this in. “Aelfhun, like it. Don’t know what it means, but cool. God, there’s still so much that human science doesn’t know, this is amazing. I still don’t like you though, Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way,” he says to Loki, who nods.

 

“I would not expect this to change your opinion of me.”

 

“So what, we just have a shapeshifter around now too?” Steve asks. Sam starts to slowly lower himself back onto the seat beside Steve. “And we trust Loki about this why?”

 

“He’s not as terrible of a person as you think, Steve,” Natasha says, “And before you ask, no, I’m not being mind controlled.”

 

Sam holds up a hand. “Uh, hate to interrupt, but can the shapeshifter change into something besides my dog? I’m a little uncomfortable with this right now.”

 

Loki looks over at the pair of dogs, and one of them morphs back into the Afghan Hound. Ava walks back over to Sam, hopping up on the couch beside him and resting her head in his lap, and Aelfhun walks back over to Loki, sitting beside him. “I think I’ll go,” Loki says, pointing back at the elevator. “I think you’ll want time to talk without me present.” He leaves, and Aelfhun follows him.

 

Tony goes back to sit on the couch. “Okay, let’s discuss this civilly. What are we discussing?”

 

“We’re discussing why Loki should be trusted, and what we’re doing with the shapeshifter,” Steve says, and Natasha moves to sit on the couch to Steve’s right, because this is going to be a longer conversation.

 

“I started talking to Loki a couple weeks ago. It was late, and I wanted tea, so I was on the communal floor. Loki came up needing food. He looked like he’d been crying, so I asked. I think we’ve made a lot of assumptions about him based on what Thor told us, but we never actually talked to him, and I think that was our mistake.”

 

* * *

 

It takes a while to explain; when she’s finished, all three men look positively mortified.

 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Tony says softly. “I hope you’re going to explain that to the others, too, because you’re right, I think we’ve really, really messed up.”

 

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “If all of that is true, then Loki’s not the person I have a problem with.”

 

Sam stands up, stretching. “Okay, well, I’m definitely not qualified to deal with this shit. I agree that Loki doesn’t sound like the real asshole here, but I’m also tired, and I was originally here for Mario Kart? So, I think Ava and I are going to head home.”

 

Natasha nods. “That’s fair. It was good to see you, Sam.” Sam leaves, and Natasha turns back to the other two men. “I’ll have JARVIS send a video copy to everyone else of what I just told you. I have a feeling some of the others are going to need more time and space to adjust to this idea. JARVIS?”

 

“Done, Ms. Romanoff. The video is preceded by a warning about its contents.”

 

“Great. I’m going to go talk to Loki. If we play this right, I might have a job for Aelfhun.” She heads to the elevator, and when she reaches Loki’s floor, he’s laying on his back on the couch in the living room, tossing some kind of sphere in the air. Aelfhun is curled up in dog form beside the couch. Both of them look up when Natasha walks in, and the sphere disappears into thin air as Loki sits up.

 

“I’m guessing it’s time for me to leave?”

 

“No, not today. I told them what you told me, about Thanos and Odin. They agreed that we’ve judged you unfairly. I’m having the same explanation sent to everyone else. It might take a while for everyone to adjust, but you get to stay. That’s not really what I wanted to talk about, though.”

 

Loki looks confused. “Okay? What are we talking about then?”

 

“How familiar are you with the concept of service animals?”

 

* * *

 

Natasha and Loki start training Aelfhun the next day. Loki’s Allspeak is only slightly more accurate than simply reading dog body language, but Loki does manage to ask if Aelfhun is willing to be a service animal. According to him, the answer is a resounding “yes,” though Natasha had figured as much when Aelfhun had tackled Loki, laying on his chest and licking his face.

 

One of the more exciting parts of training is that both Aelfhun and Loki are capable of shapeshifting. It takes a large amount of energy, so they both usually have to rest after changing form, but Natasha gets to see both of them change forms at will. She has to admit, Loki is gorgeous regardless of gender, and the look on Loki’s face the first time Aelfhun had changed into a miniature horse was so good that she honestly thought she was going to die laughing.

 

Aelfhun’s shapeshifting does make Tony’s job of making them gear harder though; at first, Tony keeps just making new versions of gear for each of Aelfhun’s forms, but eventually he just makes gear that’s incredibly adjustable so it will fit regardless of the form Aelfhun takes.

 

Loki still doesn’t spend much time around anyone besides Natasha; after the recording of Natasha’s explanation had been sent to the other members of the team, Tony had ended up calling in a team to repair the fist-sized holes in the walls on Bucky’s floor and the arrow-pierced walls on Clint’s floor. As it was, Clint hadn’t talked to Natasha for two weeks after the video, and it had been quite possibly the worst two weeks of Natasha’s life, because she didn’t want to lose the one person she’d come to trust with her life even more than she trusts herself.

 

If there’s resentment towards Loki among the Avengers, there’s even more among the people of New York, so the first time Natasha, Loki, and Aelfhun go out in public late one evening, Loki shapeshifts into his more feminine form and Aelfhun chooses the form of a Mountain Cur dog. The outing goes fine; they choose one of the nicer cafes in New York City, and besides the occasional glance over, no one bothers them. Natasha’s grateful for that, because she’s honestly not sure how well Loki would do with being confronted so soon.

 

When they get back to the tower, Loki hesitates in the elevator before stepping out onto his floor. “I don’t think I can thank you enough, for everything you’ve done for me, even after all the ways I’ve wronged you, and the people closest to you,” he tells her, and Natasha shrugs it off.

 

“I once told you I had red in my ledger, and you asked if it was possible to wipe out that much red. I still don’t know the answer to that question. But I know that the person we are changes from one day to the next, for better or worse, and I think the person we are now, the person we’re trying to become, that’s what matters more. So maybe you’ve fucked up before. But if you’re a better person now, then that’s the person I’ll treat you as, not the person you used to be.”

 

Natasha gently pushes Loki until he steps out of the elevator, Aelfhun beside him, and she smiles as the doors close. “Good night, Loki.”

**Author's Note:**

> Service dog facts of the day:
> 
> -There are such things as stay at home service animals! These are animals that are task trained, but do not go with their handlers in public access areas. For example, I know someone who has a Great Dane as a mobility service dog at home for the stairs in her house, but she does not bring that dog in public with her. These animals are legitimate service animals as well, and should be recognized as such.
> 
> -In the US, only dogs and miniature horses are recognized as service animals by federal law under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). However, other animals can sometimes be permitted at the discretion of the business. There are limitations to this; certain health codes might prevent places like restaurants from doing this, but otherwise, it's possible. I've seen videos of service cats before, too.
> 
> So, with the above in mind, you might be wondering why I'm okay with Aelfhun going in public. Well, I like to follow the logic Loki has; if they are currently a dog, we call them a dog. Similar to genderfluidity; if a person prefers to be called they/them today and she/her tomorrow, I'm going to respect that.
> 
> With that said, if you want to see more drabbles or notes related to this series, you can find me on tumblr [ here ](https://servicedogsforsuperheroes.tumblr.com)
> 
> And as always, thank you for reading!


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